Sunday, December 7, 2014

That Internal Soliloquy

"How lost he was in crowds, in unmeant things, gestures so fine they were brittle – the smart repartee, the quick jab. A participation in public hours, the visible face, this had worn him out. The greatest love affairs are ones in which the world was banished, or absolved, and something small and true was met; like a dusty object in a thrift store the heart was wiped clean and seen anew, its veins and chambers invaluable, thrilling.

To meet someone equal was to appreciate in their absence things they would had they been present, a certain kind of felt tip pen, the light on western sill. It was a gift, that internal soliloquy, of singling out the beauties in the world to another, all the lessons and regrets. An astrologer had told him the weight of ones fate was less in a foreign country; it had to do with leaving. Perhaps that’s what love was: to leave oneself and to sail into another, to bear the weight of the stars. It had to do with leaving.

As he took the shoulder of the bridge up to his village how the lights in the capital city shimmered and gradually came to dim, until they were no longer seen at all. To be unbetrayed by someone for a long time, he thought, now that might suffice. That was enough."